That is exactly the kind of bollocks my mother used to piss me off with.

At age 39 I still get angry when I have to analyse my own feelings. After having read some books about emotions I've come to the conclusion that analysing the feelings, i.e. putting them into words, requires much work which I'm unable to perform when I'm tired etc. The different parts of my brain (emotions - speech) seem to be quite disconnected.
That means that the answer to any question about my feelings about some past event 'e' doesn't tell about my real feelings about 'e' but rather my feelings about having to find an answer which I have to work for. Which I hate. Therefore, the answer will be negative, regardless whether the event 'e' was good or not.

Louise, the above statement could be an expression of your natural charm, ... OR... it could be an Automatic Negative Thought!

What bollicks do you mean?  Had she heard of the coined phrase ANT? ( I just heard it yesterday)

I thought that since the thread title mentioned negative emotions that (whoever) might want to look into what this guy (I saw him on PBS) is saying about techniques to feel better about oneself by trying to control negative thoughts.

I don't have them - but my son tells me he does and that he wishes he didn't.  Once he has a bad thought, it is hard to get rid of it and it could last an hour or a day...or who knows how long... I intend to look into this - it couldn't hurt to investigate.

This Dr. Amen also says things like there is no such things as "normal" and he is trying to help people realize how many differnet types of brains there are... (and he is not talking about spectrum people, just all people)

Many people use techniques in their life to purge bad feelings, (that make them feel low) like writing it down and burning it--(the thought) If it wokrs for someone, who is it hurting? This guy is calling it stomping out the ants -..etc.,

This post was last modified: 05-18-2010 10:29 PM by windy.

Sometimes "normal" people who are at happy when nothing good is going on get stressed when we are not happy all the time.  So some of us have had a lifetime of "why aren't you happy" even from strangers "Why don't you smile", that we are a little sensitive when it seems like we are expected to be happy even when nothing fun is going on, as though being at neutral is a bad thing.  

   However, all the research on negative thinking is wonderful and works very well.  I don't recommend the idea of stomping on ANTS because it defeats the research, which suggests we not resist (stomp) ANTS, but that we become mindful of them and then ignore or resist validating them.  But we as autistics don't feel the need to be happy all the time and are gifted with actually being in neutral emotionality when nothing is going on, and we appreciate this positive attribute of autism because it makes us a little more in touch with reality.

A couple of points I'd like to make:

1) It is very hard to remain neutral, nevermind appear happy like we're supposed to when so many bad things peculiar to us happen (such as everyday school bullying; anxiety about being liked by peers) or at its best, things happening to our peers (acheivements, social rites of passage, etc.) simply aren't happening to us.  It seems seldom are Aspies ever happy but once in a blue moon a particular Aspie may be happy transiently (such as me when I was in love), or someomne may be the rare Aspie who's relatively happy all the time (but experiences the normal ups and downs in life) due to overcoming obstacles and acheiving relative success in areas of career and love (think of Sigmund Freud's "to love and to work".  In my current state, most of the time I'm neutral-to-negative.  I'm usually neutral but am often grouchy due to my cumulative life's experiences and having failed at a critical element in order to have a more fulfilling, well-balanced life (my love-life).

2)  I think I can understand why Aspies are "boring".  And I don't mean because of perservating on special interest topics when the other parties simply aren't interested.  I mean because at our best, we're usually in a "neutral" mood rather than a "negative" mood.  Very seldom are we ever in a "positive" mood (I mean the kind of mood where we're beaming, glowing and full of zest).  I've often been told I'm boring.  We probably sound boring too with monotone speech.  I think for Aspie guys, appearing "boring" is a strike against them when it comes to getting dates.  We are typically "boring" in social situations, at least to your average NT.

Personally I'd like to be more happy than I actually am.  I've often been told I have a very negative attitude.  Granted I've had alot of negative experiences, but I keep "plugging" along.  At least if I have some control over my life, I have the resources to exercise my "persuit of happiness".  I may feel in the dumps alot, but I also have the freedom to take action and do things that will help to make me happier compared to a couple of years ago, I had no control over my life.  Now, no matter what, rather than trying to sleep when I'm not tired just to escape the pain of conciousness, there is always something to do and if I get it done, I feel a little bit better.  I'm in a recovery stage in life from a bizarrely traumatic event that unravelled over the course of over a half-decade.

I agree the terminology - stomp the ANTS sounds like it would be counterproductive.. but this guy had 4 Questions to ask oneself regarding the automatic Negative Feeling - to gauge the reality of the thought...
Here is an examples I saw on the show using the 4 questions to kill (Stomp) the ANTs.  (I think it was just recognizing them)

****Then reverse the thought...****


■Question #1: Is it true
for example that no one could love a 75 year old women (a woman was widowed and sad that she was alone and didn;t want to be) IS it true - no one could love
■OK “¦ Question #2: Can you ABSOLUTELY know that it is true NOONE Can love ....
■OK “¦ [b]Question #3: How do you feel when you have the thought “I Noone can love me..........I am too old ...
■OK “¦ [b]Question #4: Who would I be without the thought [/b]“ noone will ....


■OK “¦ now turn the thought around: to Someone can love a (the opposite of the negative thought)”  



Sorry if this is somehow off topic.

Kevout - I love your post. You explained everything you said so well.

Some people have had such hard times and negative experiences that it is a wonder how they keep plugging along.

Over the years, I've developed a lot of scepticism so it would be very hard for anybody to retrain my thoughts. I would have to see a real and present benefit in doing so. Pie in the sky promises wouldn't work and neither would simply doing it to please someone else unless it was another person I cared deeply about.

I didn't read the whole thread.  But in response to the original post:  are you sure he is getting no pleasure, or is he just not expressing it in a way you see?  That would be my guess.  My mom has thought I was miserable my whole childhood when in fact I was happy as could be until college.

This. And yes my mother had heard of that phrase, along with a whole heap of other psychobabble. It's not so much the psychobabble itself as the idea that someone you live with is analysing you all the time and deciding that when you laugh at something that's funny that means you are happy (no) and that when you don't smile you aren't happy (not necessarily)

Thanks zoey for putting it so well.

I hadn't thought about this before. It is an aspect of my psyche that I feel I have always known about, but thought was unique to me (until I joined AFF).

It is the reason for my neutral facial and body language when my brain is in 'industrial' mode, which is most of the time. It is why people often think of me that "the light is on, but nobody's in", whereas I am merely in the basement, happy as a sand-boy, number-crunching with the space-time machine that I have built down there, away from prying eyes.

However, it is the place in my head in which I feel most comfortable: hence, the place where I feel happiest. It just isn't the type of 'happy-clappy' happy that most people mean by 'happy'. It is the 'knackered old armchair and slippers' type of happy.

This post was last modified: 05-19-2010 10:55 AM by adriant.esq.

Yeah, but this doesn't make sense on a philosophical level- it uses external skepticism to make an internally skeptic claim. The point about absolute truth applies to the whole system of beliefs so it can't be used to argue that you should believe one thing over another-none of the things you believe are absolutely true.

You could equally say 'is it absolutely true that I'm good at x?' an the answer would be no, because nothing is absolutely true. The idea of if nothing is absolutely true the best way to determine beliefs is to decide what makes you feel best and believe that won't work for most people who think that things can be true and useful information without being absolutely true. Nor does it work for value judgements like "this is the necessary standard to be good enough", because that never sets out to be true, its a value judgement.

It really used to peeve me when a colleague would tell me to turn it round if I felt depressed and/or upset. If I was in a bad mood, then I was in a bad mood, darn it. Eventually the depression lifts and life looks better.

Our guy definitely seems to seek out negative reactions from us.  I think it is him wanting to be in control.  We have allowed him to earn "trouble time", where mom and I lecture a stuffed animal or imaginary personality of his choice.  When we had been doing that for a day or so, we noticed a dropoff in aggressive behaviors and the seeking of negative reinforcement. He earns "trouble time" for being kind and respectful.

This post was last modified: 05-26-2010 08:53 PM by Cash_Furniture.